Penticton

Review won't be public

The Ministry of Education says that aspects, though not all, of the previous Liberal government's rural education review will be made public as part of an upcoming B.C. education funding model review this summer.

The review, which was conducted in 2016 and involved input from rural governments and citizens, was never finalized or released to the public prior to the 2017 change in provincial government. Recently, the Okanagan-Skaha school board voted to send a letter to the now-NDP government demanding to see it.

Ministry of Education senior public affairs officer Craig Sorochan said that significant findings from the review will be used by the new provincial government in their official B.C. Education Funding Review which is expected to be released in summer or early fall 2018.

"The main findings of the [previous] review will be released," Sorochan said. "It's all being used by the ministry."

Linda Larson, MLA for Boundary-Similkameen and the former chair of the rural education review, thinks the report deserves to be seen as is, instead of the information in it being repackaged or filtered.

"For the people who participated and put in submissions, this report should be released," Larson said.

The report contains recommendations for rural education improvement based on findings from online and in-person surveys conducted province-wide.

"It's a great report, there's nothing in it that should cause any stress to this government, it certainly didn't cause any stress to ours," Larson said. "There's no reason not to release that report."

Comments are pre-moderated to ensure they meet our guidelines. Approval times will vary. Keep it civil, and stay on topic. If you see an inappropriate comment, please use the ‘flag’ feature. Comments are the opinions of the comment writer, not of Castanet. Comments remain open for one day after a story is published and are closed on weekends. Visit Castanet’s Forums to start or join a discussion about this story.